October 30, 2003 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — Extensions of Remarks E2173 all rights which are the normal constitu- cleanup and resettlement costs continue to INTRODUCTION OF NEW PARTNER- tional rights of the citizens under the Con- mount, and Marshallese want more U.S. SHIP FOR HAITI ACT OF 2003 stitution, but will be dealt with as wards of funding. the United States for whom this country has special responsibilities,’’ according to a The Marshallese prospects for immediate HON. BARBARA LEE memorandum from the Atomic Energy Com- help from U.S. officials in Washington seem OF CALIFORNIA mission attached to President Truman’s Di- dim, congressional sources in Washington, IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES rective of Nov. 25, 1947, to the Secretary of D.C., told the Weekly. Enewetak’s $386 mil- Defense. lion in land claims is not included in the Wednesday, October 29, 2003 The 142 Enewetakese (and their descend- budget Congress is considering for the fiscal Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, today I am intro- ants) on Ujelang suffered greatly because of year that began this Oct. 1. Nor are funds for ducing H.R. 3386, The New Partnership for logistical problems, inclement weather, bu- a medical program that in 2001 ceased to ad- Haiti Act of 2003, which will help Haitians reaucratic negligence and the island’s deso- dress Marshallese health needs that have overcome the many social, economic, and lation. Even the Department of Interior, in a been urgent enough to warrant sending a six- letter dated Jan. 13, 1978, acknowledged that physical challenges currently facing the coun- during their 33-year exile on Ujelang the person delegation to Washington last month try. Enewetakese ‘‘have suffered grave depriva- to plead with congressional leaders and staff. Today in Haiti only 45% of Haitians have tions, including periods of near starvation.’’ Provisions of the Compact of Free Associa- access to safe water and 28% have access to An anthropologist who lived among them tion set to expire next year are being nego- sanitation. Seventy-six percent of Haiti’s chil- on Ujelang and spoke Marshallese, Laurence tiated with the Bush administration, but any dren under the age of five are underweight, or M. Carucci, wrote that the stories of this pe- agreement must then be acted on by Con- suffer from stunted growth and 63% of Hai- riod told to him over and over by elders fo- tians are undernourished. Eighty percent of cused on famine and hunger, near starvation gress, which is soon to adjourn. Arguing that and death from illness, poor fishing condi- U.S. assistance provided in past agreements the population lives in abject poverty and the tions, epidemics of polio and measles and rat is ‘‘manifestly inadequate,’’ Marshallese offi- unemployment rate is estimated to be around infestation. cials in September 2000 petitioned Congress 60%. One Enewetak woman in her 40s told for increased U.S. medical and other assist- My longstanding interest in ending the AIDS Carucci in 1978 about these difficult days. ance to meet the mounting costs of damages pandemic has brought focus on Haiti, with She described the stomachs of children as to persons and property presumed to be 90% of all HIV/AIDS cases in the Caribbean. being ‘‘stuck out like they were bloated and caused by U.S. nuclear testing. That petition As we combat global HIV/AIDS, malaria and you would never think they were hungry,’’ is still being studied by the Bush administra- tuberculosis, maternal and child mortality, and but in fact they were. Then, she continued: tion, and no congressional measure on it is ‘‘They would get hot fevers, then cold chills; many other life threatening diseases, we must hot fevers, then cold and sweaty. And then, pending. address the long-term effect of dilapidated physical and health infrastructure and abject in just a moment, they would be gone. Dead, FROM CRATER TO CRYPT they would never move again. Their life was poverty throughout the world, including in gone. And, in those days, the wailing across Much of the plutonium-contaminated soil Haiti. the village was constant.’’ removed in the operation to clean up My bill, the New Partnership for Haiti Act of Their hardship was so severe that in 1969 Enewetak was dumped into one of the atoll’s 2003 offers a comprehensive plan for future they commandeered a supply ship and de- smaller craters on Runit island. This crater engagement between the U.S. and Haitian manded they be returned home. Their ances- was created May 5, 1958, during the 18-kil- tral atoll was too contaminated with radio- Government. This legislation partners Haitians oton test shot code-named Cactus. The cra- activity for their return, but the U.S. gov- and Americans together to execute an envi- ter, 30 feet deep and 350 feet wide, was filled ernment did begin an extensive cleanup and ronmentally sound approach to rebuilding rehabilitation so that on Oct. 1, 1980, some with about 111,000 cubic yards of radioactive Haiti. Its major provisions are aimed at devel- islanders returned home. soil and other materials and then entombed oping basic sanitation, water, and other health Upon their return, they found a far dif- beneath a dome of 358 concrete panels, each infrastructures in Haiti. ferent atoll, a far different Enewetak. The 18 inches thick. Researchers in ‘‘Atomic The New Partnership for Haiti Act would Mike shot and 42 other detonations had dev- Audit’’ report that the unprecedented job, bring the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers to train astated Enewetak so severely that more completed in 1980, took three years and and educate Haitians on how to rebuild, pave, than half of the land and pockets of the la- about $239 million. goon today remain contaminated by radi- and maintain roads to provide access to rural ation. The islanders who do reside there can- Soon afterward, a delegation from the Na- and urban areas and to health clinics. It will not live off of much of their land and must tional Academy of Sciences inspected the commission environmental impact studies for rely on imported food. dome and, John Harrison recalls, issued a re- these projects, focusing on long term, environ- MOONSCAPING ENEWETAK port noting the inadequacies of the dome, mentally sound solutions—not short term rem- The Mike shot was the eighth of 43 nuclear specifically that the predicted longevity of edies. weapons tests at Enewetak that transformed the containment structure was at best 300 Haiti needs assistance in addressing its a placid atoll into a moonscape. The years. Yet, the plutonium-laced debris en- long-term health infrastructure development. Enewetak people, now numbering 1,500, are cased in the dome will remain radioactive The most basic of these needed development still pleading with the U.S. government for for 500,000 years and hazardous to humans for challenges is water. How can Haiti begin to $386 million in land and hardship damages at least half that time. combat its enormous health problems without and other compensation awarded to them by The Runit island entombment is of special basic clean and safe water? an official tribunal established by the U.S. and Marshallese governments. This panel interest because a nuclear-waste crypt is Haiti’s water quality is life-threatening. In a ruled in April 2000 that after serving as now being finished 800 miles from Honolulu study released in May of 2003, Haiti ranked Ground Zero for 43 weapons tests and receiv- to bury plutonium-laced materials under a last in the world for water quality. The New ing fallout from other shots, the Enewetak cap of coral soil at Johnston Island, where Partnership for Haiti Act will provide funds and atoll: Was uninhabitable on 49 percent of its four failed nuclear-tipped missile shots in expertise through USAID to partner with Haiti original land mass, or 949.8 acres of 1,919.49 1962 showered the atoll and waters with ra- on rebuilding of sanitation, water purification acres; was habitable on only 43 percent of its dioactive debris. projects, and education for Haitians on how to land area, or 815.33 acres; was vaporized by 8 From test site to dump site, the Runit is- maintain these systems themselves in the fu- percent, or 154.36 acres. The lingering effects of U.S. Pacific nu- land crypt eerily symbolizes the legacy of ture. This bill will help Haitians build and main- clear tests are visible today in the numerous the thermonuclear age that has caused the tain safer, quality sewage systems and safe kinds of cancers and other diseases and the Marshallese to suffer disproportionately in water delivery for both urban and rural com- degraded homelands that are determined by adverse health, environmental and cultural munities. an official panel established by the U.S. and conditions. The New Partnership for Haiti Act will start Marshallese governments to result from the The 50th anniversary of the Mike shot and a pilot program for American Health Profes- U.S. experiments of decades ago. Compensa- its aftermath begs for reflection from a na- sionals and also Engineers who are interested tion for these damages is paid for from a $150 tion so riveted on a purported nuclear threat in going to Haiti and helping with the develop- million trust fund that is now too depleted to pay fully current personal and property in the Middle East and North Korea that it ment process. claims. Since 1946, researchers write in ignores the era of mass destruction intro- It is my hope that a transfer of knowledge Atomic Audit, the U.S. government has paid duced by the United States on Enewetak from U.S.